expedition, and so, for more than that space of time, he had not called
at Mrs. Murray's. When he rang the door-bell on the evening of his
return Harriet, who answered it, left him to find his way alone to the
pretty sitting-room, warm and lighted and empty, as he thought. The next
instant, however, his heart gave a bound, as he saw at its opposite end
Christine, tall and slight and young and beautiful, standing, with her
back turned, before a table against the wall, on which a large engraving
rested.
It was heavily framed and he knew he had never seen it there before.
The fact was Mrs. Murray, who had a very romantic heart, had seen it in
a shop-window and impulsively bought it, and it had just been sent home.
Noel, stepping with the utmost caution over the thick carpet, came near
enough to look at the picture over Christine's shoulder. He knew it
well. It was Frederick Leighton's "Wedded."
As the man and woman stood before it each was under the spell of that
beautiful representation of abandonment to love--the deep and holy
wedded love which is the God-given right of every man and woman who
lives and feels.
Christine was utterly unconscious of his nearness as she bent toward
it eagerly. He could see by the movement of her throat and shoulders
that her breaths were coming thick and fast and her heart was beating
hard. As for him the fact that he was near to her was the supreme
consciousness of that moment to him, and all the meaning of this
consciousness was in his voice, as he whispered her name:
"Christine!"
She started and turned. His eyes caught hers and held them. For a moment
she found it impossible to release them from his compelling gaze. She
was under the spell of the picture still. It had broken down the
habitual barriers of restraint and self-control, and sent an exultant
gleam into her heart, which her face reflected.
"Christine!" he said again in that thrilling whisper.
The sound of his voice recalled her. That strange, exalted look gave
place to another, which was as if a withering blight had crossed her
face, and she turned and looked at Noel. He met that look of desolation
and anguish with firm, unflinching eyes.
"I love you," he whispered low, but clear.
"Then spare me," she whispered back.
"Once more, Christine," he said. They kept their places, a few feet
apart, and neither moved a muscle except for the slight motion of their
lips, from which the faint sounds came forth like ghostly whispers.
"Once more, Christine--answer me this. Do you love me?"
And again she answered:
"No."
The tone in which she said it was strong and steady in spite of its
lowness, and the eyes confirmed it.
The suspense was over. With that strange recollectedness which human
beings often have in the sharpest crises of their lives Noel suppressed
the great sigh that had risen from his heart, and let the breath of it
go forth from his parted lips, with careful pains to make no sound.
It was a relief to both that at this moment Mrs. Murray came into the
room. They turned abruptly from the picture, and in the cordial greeting
which the hostess bestowed upon her guest the moment's ordeal was
successfully passed. Not, however, without the watchful eyes of Mrs.
Murray having seen much, and conjectured far more. Whether her impulse
in buying the picture had done good or harm she was puzzled to
determine.
XV.
Noel, during the sleepless hours of the night which followed, looked the
whole situation in the face and made his resolutions, strong and fast,
for the future of Christine and himself. His love for her, which she had
not forbidden and could not forbid, must be enough for him henceforth,
and because all his soul desired her love in return she should not, for
that reason, be deprived of his friendship. When he thought of loving
any other woman, and being loved by her in return, and contrasted it
with the mere right to love Christine and be near her, forever unloved,
he felt himself rich beyond telling.
That evening, determined to put into effect at once this new resolution
and conveying some hint of it to Christine, he went to Mrs. Murray's.
He rang the bell and entered the house with a strong sense of
self-possession, which was only a very little disturbed when the maid
again ushered him into the little drawing-room where he found Christine
alone.
He could see that his coming was utterly unexpected. The lamp, by which
she usually sat at work, was not lighted, and the gas in the hall cast
only a dim light upon her here, but the fire lent its aid in lighting up
the figure. She was lying on the lounge before the fire as he came in,
but she rose to her feet at once, saying, in a voice whose slight ring
of agitation disturbed a little farther yet his self-poised calm:
"Mrs. Murray has gone to see a neighbor whose daughter is very ill. They
have just moved to the house and have no friends near, and she went to
see what she could do. She will be back very soon. She did not think you
would come to-night."
Noel heard the little strained sound in her voice, and fancied he saw
also about her eyes a faint trace of recent tears; but the light was
turned low and she stood with her back to it, as if to screen herself
from his gaze. A great wave of tenderness possessed his heart. He felt
sure he could trust himself to be tender and no more, as he said gently:
"Christine, have you been crying--here all alone in the darkness, with
no one to comfort and help you to bear? The thought of it wrings my
heart."
"Oh, it is nothing," she said, her voice, in spite of her, choking up.
"I sometimes get nervous--I am not used to being alone. It is over now.
I will get the lamp--"
But he stopped her. He made one step toward her and took both her hands
in his.
"Wait," he said, in a controlled and quiet tone. In the silence that
followed the word they could hear the little clock on the mantel ticking
monotonously. Noel was trying hard, as they stood thus alone in the
stillness and half-darkness, to gather up his suddenly-weakened forces,
so that he might tell her, in the hope of giving her comfort, of the
resolute purpose he had entered into. But in the moment which he gave
himself to make this rally a sudden influence came over him from the
contact of the cold hands he held in his. At first it was a subtle,
faint, indefinite sensation, as of something strange and wonderful
and far away, but coming nearer. The very breath of his soul seemed
suspended, to listen and look as he waited. The clock ticked on, and
they stood there motionless as statues. Suddenly a short, low sigh
escaped Christine, and he felt her cold hands tremble. The swift
consciousness that ran through Noel was like living ecstasy injected in
his veins. He drew her two hands upward and crushed them against his
breast.
"Christine," he said, "you love me."
She met his ardent, agitated gaze with direct, unflinching eyes.
"Yes," she said distinctly, "I love you," but with the exertion of all
her power she shook herself free from his grasp, and sprang away from
him to the farthest limit of the little room.
"Stop," she said, waving him back with her hand. "I have owned the
truth, but I must speak to you--"
As well might Christine have tried to parley with a coming storm of
wind. The chained spirit within Noel had been set free by the words,
"Yes, I love you," that Christine had spoken, and his passionate love
must have its way. He followed her across the room, and with a gentle
force, against which she was as helpless as a child, he compelled her to
come into his arms, to put down her head against his shoulder and to
rest on his her bounding heart. He held her so in a close, restrictive
pressure, against which she soon ceased to struggle, but lay there still
and unresisting.
"Now," he said gently, speaking the low word softly and clearly in her
ear, "now, speak, and I will listen."
"I love you," she said brokenly.
Their full hearts throbbed together as he answered:
"That is enough."
"It is all--the utmost," she went on. "I can never marry you. When you
loose me from your arms to-night it will be forever. Hold me close a
little longer while I tell you."
Her voice was faint and uncertain; her frame was trembling; he could
feel the whole weight of her body upon him, as he held her against his
exultant heart, while the power that had come into him gave him a
strength so mighty that he supported the sweet burden as if its weight
were nothing.
"Go on," he murmured gently, in a secure and quiet tone, "I am
listening."
"I only want to tell you, if I can, how much I love you. I want you to
know it all, that the torment of having it unsaid may leave me."
Of her own will she raised her arms and put them about his neck, laying
down her face on one of them, so that her lips were close against his
ear.
"At the first," she said, "I liked and admired you because I saw you
were good and noble. Then I trusted you, and made your truth my anchor
in the awful seas of trouble I was tossed in. Then I came to reverence
and almost worship you for the highness that is in you, and then, oh,
then after my baby died and my other dreadful sorrow came, against my
will, in spite of hard fighting and struggling and trying, I went a step
higher yet and loved you, with a love that takes in all the rest--that
is admiration, and trust, and reverence, and love in one. Oh," she said
with a great sigh, "but it is all in vain! I cannot tell you--I cannot!
I say the utmost, and it seems pale and poor and miserably weak. You do
not understand the love you have called into being in my poor, broken
heart. I thought I should have the comfort of feeling I had told you. I
feel only that I have failed! Oh, before we part, I want you to know
how I love you--how the stress of it is bursting my heart--how the
mightiness of it seems to expand my soul until it touches Heaven. Oh,
if I could only ease my heart of its great weight of love by finding
words to tell you."
He put his lips close to her ear.
"One kiss," he said softly, and then turned them to meet hers.
Christine gave him the kiss, and it was as he had said. The stress upon
her heart was loosened. She felt that she had told him all.
"You are mine," he said, in a calm, low voice of controlled exultation,
although, even as he said it, he loosed her from his arms and suffered
her to move away from him and sink into a chair. He came and sat down
opposite her, repeating the words he had spoken.
"No," she said, "I am my own! I am the stronger to be so, now that the
whole truth is known to you. Mr. Noel, I have only to tell you good-by.
To-night must be the very last of it."
"Mr. Noel!" he threw the words back to her, with a little scornful
laugh. "You can never call me that again, without feeling it the
hollowest pretence! I tell you you are mine!"
The assured, determined calm of his tones and looks began to frighten
her. She saw the struggle before her assuming proportions that made her
fear for herself--not for the strength of her resolve, but for her power
to carry it out. She could only repeat, as if to fortify herself:
"I will never marry you."
"Why?" he asked.
"Because--ah, because I love you too much. Be merciful, and let that
thought plead for me."
"It is for the same reason that I will never give you up. It is no use
to oppose me now, Christine. You are mine and I am yours."
"But if you know that you make me suffer--"
"I know, too, that I can comfort you. I know I can make you happy,
beyond your highest dreams. I know I can take you away from every
association of sadness, far off to beautiful foreign countries where no
one will know us for anything but what we are--what alone we shall be
henceforth, a man and woman who love each other and who have been united
in the holy bond of marriage, which God has blessed--just a husband and
wife, Christine--get used to the dear names and thought--with whose
right to love each other no one will have anything to do. If the idea of
the past disturbs you we will get rid of it by going where we have no
past, where no one will ever have heard of us before. As for ourselves,
Christine, I can give you my honor that there is nothing in the past of
either of us that disturbs me for one pulse-beat, and I'll engage to
make you forget all that it pains you to remember. Why, it is a simple
thing to do. We send for a clergyman, and here in this room, with Mrs.
Murray and Eliza and Harriet for witnesses, we are married to-morrow
morning! In the afternoon we sail for Europe, to begin our long life of
happiness together. You know whether I could make you happy or not,
Christine. You know whether your heart longs to go with me--just as
surely as I know that my one possible chance of happiness is in getting
your consent to be my wife."
"I cannot!" she said, "I cannot! We must think of others beside
ourselves. If you are willing to sacrifice yourself, think of your
mother and sisters!"
"Sacrifice myself! I sacrifice myself only if I give you up. You must
feel the falseness of such a use of the word. As for my mother and
sisters, I ask you to test that matter. Agree to marry me and I promise
that they will come to our wedding, and my mother will call you
daughter, and my sisters will call you sister, and they will open their
hearts to you and love you."
"Because your will is all-powerful with them," she said.
"Yes, partly because they trust and believe in me, and will sanction
what I do; and also because--in spite of a good deal of surface
conventionality and worldliness--they are right-minded, true-hearted,
good women, who will only need to know your whole history, as I know it,
and to realize my love for you, as I can make them realize it, to feel
that our marriage is the right and true and only issue of it all."
Christine felt herself terribly shaken. She did not dare to look at Noel
lest her eyes might betray her, and she would not for anything have him
to know how she was weakened in her resolve by what he had said of his
mother and sisters. The conviction with which he spoke had carried its
own force to her mind, and she suddenly found the strongest weapon with
which she had fought her fight shattered in her hands. He saw that she
was weakening, but he would not take advantage of it. She was so white
and tremulous; her breath came forth so quick and short; the drawn lines
about her mouth were so piteous that he felt she must be spared.
"I will not press you now, Christine," he said; "take time to think
about it. Let me come again to-morrow morning. I will leave you now and
you must try to rest. Talk freely to Mrs. Murray. Ask her what you must
do. Remember that I consent to wait, only because I am so determined.
Listen to me one moment. I swear before Heaven I will never give you up.
You gave yourself to me in that kiss, and you are mine."
"Yes," she said, as if that struggle were over with her now, "I am
yours. I know it. Even if we part forever I am always yours. I will
tell you what I will do. Your mother shall know everything and she shall
decide."
He was at once afraid and glad, and Christine saw it.
"I must see your mother," she began.
"I will see her for you. I will tell her everything and you shall see
she will be for us. But if she should not, I warn you, Christine, I will
not give you up for any one alive."
"Listen to me," said Christine calmly. "This is what you must do. You
must go to your mother and tell her there is some one that you love.
Tell her as fully and freely as you choose. Convince her of the truth
and strength of it as thoroughly as you can, and tell her that woman
loves you in return, but has refused to marry you, for reasons which,
if she would like to hear them, that woman herself will lay before her.
I cannot let you do it for me," she went on earnestly. "I know you
would wish to spare me this, but only a woman's tongue could tell that
story of misery, and only a woman's heart could understand it. You think
she will love me for my misfortunes, as you have done in your great,
generous heart. I do not dare to think it, but I will put it to the
test. You must promise me to tell her nothing except just what I have
told you. Do you promise this?"
"I promise it, upon my honor; but remember, if my mother should decide
against me, I do not give you up."
"No, but I will give you up."
"Christine!" he cried. "And yet you say you love me!"
"Oh, yes, I say I love you--and you know whether it is true."
She stood in front of him and looked him firmly in the face, but the
look of her clear eyes was so full of crowding, overwhelming sorrow that
love, for a while, seemed to have taken flight.
In vain he tried to put his hopeful spirit into her. She only shook her
head and showed him a face of deep, unhoping sorrow.
"If your mother consents to see me, appoint an hour to-morrow morning
and let me know. I will take a carriage and go alone--"
"I will come for you. I will bring my mother's carriage--"
"No, I must go alone, and I prefer to go in a hired carriage. You must
see that no one else is present--neither of your sisters. It is to your
mother only that I can say what I have to say."
"Everything shall be as you wish. But, Christine, don't be hurt if you
find my mother's manner difficult, at first. She has had a great deal of
trouble, and it has made her manner a little hard--"
"Ah," she said, "I can understand that."
"But it is only her manner," Noel went on, "her heart is kind and true."
"Don't try to encourage me. I am not afraid. If she has known the face
of sorrow that is the best passport between us. Perhaps she will
understand me."
"Promise me this, Christine--that whatever happens, you will see me
to-morrow evening--and see me alone."
"I promise, but it may be to say good-by."
He repressed the defiant protest of his heart, secure in his strong
resolve.
"Good-night, Christine," he said.
"Good-night," she answered. Her eyes seemed to look at him through a
great cloud of sorrow, and her voice was like the speaking of a woman in
a dream. There was a great and availing force in the mood that held her.
Noel knew she wished to be alone and that she had need of the repose of
solitude. So he only clasped her hand an instant, in a strong, assuring
pressure, and was gone.
Exhausted, worn out, spent with sorrow, Christine retired at once to her
room, and went wearily to bed, wondering what the next day would bring.
She soon fell into a deep sleep, and slept heavily till morning, waking
with a confused mingling of memory and expectancy in which joy and pain
were inseparably united.
XVI.
Noel's note came early. It announced that his mother would be ready to
receive her visitor any time after eleven. It was full of the strongest
assurances of love and constancy, and Christine knew it was meant to
comfort and support her in her approaching ordeal. She felt so strong to
meet this, however, that even Mrs. Murray's earnest protest that harm
would come of the visit failed to intimidate her, and she turned a deaf
ear to all her good friend's entreaties to her to give it up. Mrs.
Murray's advice was for the immediate marriage and departure for Europe,
but Christine's mind was made up, and could not be shaken.
She was feeling strangely calm as she drove along through a part of the
great city she had never ever seen before, where there were none but
splendid houses, with glimpses, through richly-curtained windows, of
luxurious interiors, and where all the people who passed her, whether
on foot or in handsome carriages, had an air of ease and comfort and
luxury that made her feel herself still more an alien. She did not
regret her resolution, but she felt quite hopeless of its result. It
would make matters simpler for her, at all events.
When the carriage stopped she got out with a strange feeling of
unreality, closed the door behind her, careful to see that it caught,
spoke to the driver quietly and told him to wait, and then walked up the
steps and rang the bell. During the moment she stood there a boy came
along and threw a small printed paper at her feet. It was an
advertisement of a new soap, and she was reading it mechanically when
the door was opened by a tall man-servant who stood against the
background of a stately hall, whose rich furnishings were revealed by
the softened light that came through the stained glass windows.
Christine was closely veiled, and coming out of the sunshine it all
seemed obscure and dim. She asked if Mrs. Noel was at home, and when the
man said yes, and ushered her in she desired him to say to Mrs. Noel
that the lady with whom she had an appointment was come.
Then she sat down in the great drawing-room and waited. The silence was
intense. She seemed to have shrunk to a very small size as she sat in
the midst of all this high-pitched, broad-proportioned stateliness. As
her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness the objects about her seemed
to come out, one by one--beautiful pictures, graceful statues, rich
draperies and delicate, fine ornaments of many kinds. A carriage rolled
by outside, one of the horses slipping on the thin coat of ice with
which the shady side of the street was covered. The driver jerked him up
sharply, with a smothered exclamation, and went on. As the sound of
wheels died away she could hear a street band far off, playing a popular
air. Then that too ceased and the silence without was as profound as the
silence within. Christine felt precisely as if she were dreaming. It
seemed to her hours that she had waited here, though she knew it was
only a very few minutes, before the servant returned. Mrs. Noel
requested that she would be kind enough to come up-stairs, he said.
Christine followed him silently up the great staircase, and was ushered
into a room near its head. She heard the door closed behind her, and saw
a small, slight figure, dressed in black, standing opposite to her.
"Good-morning. Excuse my asking you to come up-stairs," a clear, refined
voice began; but suddenly it broke off, and perfect silence followed,
and the eyes of the two women met. Christine was very pale, and those
beautiful eyes of hers had dark rings around them, but they were
marvellously clear and true, and, above all, they were eloquent with
sorrow.
The elder woman advanced to her and took her hand.
"Oh, my child, how you must have suffered!" she said.
"Ah, you know what it is. You have suffered, too. We shall understand
each other better for that."
"My dear, I seem to understand it all. Don't be unhappy. You need have
no fear of me. If you love my son as he loves you, you have my consent.
I will not ask to know anything."
"You must know. I have come to tell you. You will probably change your
mind when you have heard."
The elder woman, who was pale and delicate, and yet in spite of all this
bore some resemblance to her strong young son, now led her tall
companion to a seat, and sitting down in front of her, said kindly:
"Take off your hat and gloves, my dear. Try to feel at home with me. I
love my son too dearly to go against him in the most earnest desire of
his life. He has told me nothing, except that you love each other, and
that there is something which you consider an obstacle to your marriage,
but which he utterly refuses to accept as such. Tell me about it, dear,
and let me set your mind at rest."
Christine took off her gloves, because they were a constraint to her,
and now, as she gave her two bare hands into those of Mrs. Noel, she
said calmly:
"You think it is some little thing--that lack of fortune or a difference
in social position is the obstacle. I would not be here now if it were
no more than that--for I do love him!"
The last words broke from her as if involuntarily, and the impulse that
made her utter them sent the swift tears to her eyes. But she forced
them back, and they had no successors.
"And he loves you, too--oh, how he loves you! I wonder if you know."
"Yes, I know--I know it all. He has shown and proved, as well as told
me. We love each other with a complete and perfect love. Even if I have
to give him up nothing can take that away."
"My dear, you need not give him up. I asked my son one question only:
'Is her honor free from stain?'"
"And what was his answer?"
"'Absolutely and utterly. She is as stainless as an angel.' Those were
his very words."
"God bless him for them! God forever bless him!" said Christine. "I
know, in his eyes, it is so."
"In his eyes!" repeated Mrs. Noel. "Is there any doubt that it would be
so in any eyes?"
"Yes," said Christine, "there is great doubt."
It was well for her that she had not hoped too much--well that she had
kept continually in mind the awful value of the revelation she had come
to make. If she had been sanguine and confident the look that now came
over the face of Noel's mother would have been a harder thing to bear.
But Christine was all prepared for it. It wounded, but it did not
surprise nor disturb her perfect calm. There was a distinct change in
the tone with which Mrs. Noel now said: